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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 4/30/13

10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Babies For Sale (1940 USA): Sorry, bub, in this case the first one is not free. With a title like Babies For Sale, you might expect this flick to be a roadhouse indie or perhaps a PRC production, but in actual fact it’s a Columbia second feature starring up-and-comer Glenn Ford. Ford plays Steve Burton, a reporter who goes undercover to get the scoop on baby farming, an industry that purportedly grosses $50,000,000 a year (or did in 1940). An encounter with a widower (John Qualen) whose wife couldn’t cope with the defective child they’d adopted from a local agency personalizes the story for Steve, who goes to extreme lengths to alert the authorities and wake up the sheeple. No truth to the rumor that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is one of the newborns featured in this film.

Wednesday 5/1/13

12:45 AM Starz in Black
City of God (2002 BRA): The best film of 2002 - and 2003 as well, if you’re going by the guidelines established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – returns to American television this evening. The true story of youngsters growing up in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro, City of God has the now-familiar roundabout narrative structure of a Tarantino film, but there the similarities to the works of Monsieur Ritalin end. Picking up where Hector Babenco’s gritty 1981 masterpiece Pixote left off, this Fernando Meirelles-helmed feature stars Alexandre Rodrigues as Buscape, a young, scrawny inhabitant of one of Rio’s ubiquitous shantytowns. The film’s major protagonists, however, are Buscape’s friends and neighbors, most of whom are deeply involved in the drug trade and all of whom are immersed in gang culture and life. City of God’s great strength is its ability to keep its subjects' humanity in perspective, with even the worst of them revealing vulnerabilities or likable characteristics, and whilst the story may not be a new one - we already have learned many times over that poverty breeds crime, even if we choose not to learn the lesson - City of God miraculously manages to retell the tale in new and fresh ways. Extremely violent and frequently shocking, this dazzling film ends on a note of hope and grace that will appeal to even the most jaded film fan. I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Also airs at noon.

4:30 AM Starz Citation
Osama (2004 AFG-HOL): The first film shot in post-Taleban Afghanistan, and they go and call it Osama. Go figure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film focuses on the treatment of women in the former Islamic Caliphate, and the main character is actually a young girl with the unfortunate moniker of, you guessed it, Osama. She lives with her mother and grandma in a testosterone-free household - a problem when the ruling Taliban decrees that women can’t leave their homes unescorted. Driven to desperation by the family’s gnawing hunger, the youngster cuts her hair and assumes the identity of a boy, allowing her to take care of inessential niceties like getting a job and buying food so the household doesn’t starve to death. Could things get much worse for the family? Actually, yes, as the newly shorn Osama is snatched from her job by religious zealots and sent to a madrassah for indoctrination into the ways of Islamic fundamentalism! Talk about your poetic justice! Produced with the assistance of Iran’s Makhmalbhaf Film House, the film reflects the influences of that country’s rich cinema traditions - the focus on a child as narrative device is a favorite trick of Iranian filmmakers to circumvent censorship - and was directed by Siddiq Barmak, one of the educated, Soviet-era elite so despised by the mujaheddin. Osama won the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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